On Saturday, March 18, in the match of the 18th round of the Ukrainian championship Dynamo Kyiv with a score 0:1 lost to Luhansk Zorya. The match took place in Kyiv at the Dynamo Stadium named after Valeriy Lobanovskiy. Here is the post-match press conference of the head coaches.
Mircea Lucescu. Photo - YurievMircea Lucescu, head coach of Dynamo:
- It was a very difficult game. In which each team could win. The game was going on till the first goal. We were very motivated today. But it is always hard to play against Zoria. We knew that the opponent will play on the counterattack. Zoria is a good young team, congratulations to them with the victory.
- Why did you decide to change the bench?
- This is not my decision, this is the club's decision.
- Who can solve such issues, except the head coach?
- There are many people who can make such decisions. I was offered and I agreed. It's not that important. We could choose and we made that choice.
- How many more matches does your team have to lose for you to resign?
- The problem is that the team is going through a rough patch. I can resign at any time, I do not mind. But the problem is different.
We lost a lot of players. We lost Shaparenko, Tsygankov, Besedin, Verbic, Vitinho, De Pena. And this is not the whole list. We are talking about serious staffing losses. We can not buy new players in an instant and we can not rebuild the lineup in an instant. It takes time for young players to become full-fledged key players. It does not happen instantly. And we have a team with 11 players under 18 years of age.
Finally, we lost two goalkeepers. We have a lot of injuries, and the team was in crisis. I can leave at any time if that is the problem.
Patrick van Leeuwen. Photo by JurjevPatrick van Leeuwen, Zarya head coach:
- We had a plan to play our own soccer. Despite the fact that the rivals were Dynamo Kyiv. We have studied the opponent. Not everything worked out, of course, but I think we had every chance to score in the first half. The second half we spent a little closer to our goal than we wanted to. But again, we had our chances. In the end, one of those moments, we realized.
The game turned out to be interesting. It is always interesting to play against teams like Dynamo Kyiv or Shakhtar Donetsk. We always try to play attacking soccer. Today we did not have many opportunities to show it, but we aspired to this, despite the name of the opponent.
- Does your team feel the pressure, given the fact that it is among the leaders in the championship of Ukraine?
- We go from game to game, we strive to get results in every game. Today it was obvious that for our young players it was a special game. After all, the rivals were Dynamo Kyiv. Now we will not look at the standings but at the next game.
Alexandr POPOV from Dynamo Stadium named after Valerii Lobanovs'kyi
